Within Me
by ishippeditovernight
Summary: On his first real hunt as a human, Cas dies. Dean's not dealing with it well. Actually, he's doing a lot worse than he realizes. (hinted/implied destiel)
1. Chapter 1

Notes: This story was inspired by / shamelessly stolen from an episode I love of one of my other favorite TV shows. I'm 509% sure people will figure it out at some point, but just in case, I'll admit it at the end. :)

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 **Within Me**

 _Something about you that makes me feel bad  
I wasn't there when a thin line destroyed your soul_

 _I search every corner there's nowhere to hide how I feel  
Ignorance, sacrifice  
Some days it's harder_

 _Now I'm aware when a man falls  
Rebound, my fault  
_ **lacuna coil x within me**

Dean would relive the beginning of the hunt over and over again throughout the next few months. There were so many things he would regret not thinking of, but by the time everything happened, it was way too late for anything but sorrow.

Cas had been human for a few weeks now, ever since the grace had turned out to be the last bit of the spell needed to de-Mark-ify Dean's arm. He'd started talking about hunting after just a couple weeks, eager to dive into the human world of his own volition this time around. Despite the brothers' hesitation and uncertainty, Cas had worn them down, and they'd agreed to let him come along on a routine ghost hunt.

"I wanna go after the ghost," Cas had said, endearingly gung-ho as he packed a bag with iron, salt, and spare lighters.

And Sam and Dean had agreed, throwing in a shotgun to round things out.

That was their second mistake. Bad enough to bring in someone new, someone vulnerable _because_ he was human and used to having heavenly powers at his disposal. Bad enough—despite the training he'd undergone in the few weeks beforehand. And a whole lot worse to bring him into the thicker of things on trial run #1. Sure, maybe he'd have been pissy to merely be doing grave-digging work, but better pissy than d—than—

But ghosts were a dime a dozen and easily enough dispatched, Dean remembered thinking.

Fucking idiot.

xxxxx

He leans in. Crosses his arms on the edge of the bed and drops his head down, one watery eye stinging with the miniscule pain of a loose lash edging free inside the lid. He doesn't bother wiping his eyes anymore. The area beneath them is rubbed almost raw.

"Dean—"

"Shut the hell up, Sam," Dean growls, and scoots his chair closer to the silent bed.

xxxxx

If only they'd read the reports of the damage more closely. They might have realized there were actually _two_ ghosts. Twins. Oddly enough. There wasn't one victim out for revenge, there were two.

So as Sam went into the graveyard to salt and burn the bones, Cas and Dean had traipsed through the house, trying to lure out what they thought was one ghost. They'd separated. Cas to the basement, Dean upstairs.

The younger twin's ghost showed up in the bathroom on the second floor, but she hurled the lid of the toilet tank at Dean's chest with more strength than he'd have thought possible, slamming him back against the wall. Ended up hitting his head so hard that he'd needed a second to get his bearings back. At that moment, a sickeningly loud _bam_ echoed all the way up to the second floor.

Dean had been fighting the younger ghost, barely managing to dodge more projectiles before swinging a wrench through the damn thing. All the while, Cas was losing consciousness, lying in a pool of blood at the base of the pipe he'd been knocked head-on into. Dying. Alone.

xxxxx

"We're gonna have to get him out of here—" Sam's voice is barely sewn together, Scotch tape and Velcro, emotions poking at the holes still gaping. "B-burn his b—…"

"You say another word, I'll burn _you_ ," Dean utters, reaching one hand higher up on the hospital bed to twist into cold fingers.

He's bodily pulled away by an orderly after four hours.

xxxxx

xxxxx

 _It's your fault. It's your fault. It's your fault._

They stand in the clearing, cool early-summer air yielding to the warmth of the fire surrounding Cas's body. Dean stares blankly, barely able to pay attention to anything beyond the regular drum beat of blame pounding through his mind.

 _Your fault. Your fault. You left him alone._

Sam takes a half-step closer and rests one hand on Dean's upper arm. Shifts his weight slightly. Out of the corner of his eye Dean can see him open his mouth and then close it again.

What is there to say?

Sam settles for squeezing Dean's arm instead, trying to support his brother without words.

 _You did this, Dean. You did this. YOU._

The fire crackles suddenly hard, as if agreeing.

 _You._


	2. Chapter 2

The Impala is a living, breathing creature, Dean reflects as he drives aimlessly. The sound of the engine _alone_ … Soothing as hell. "Love that purr," he says, satisfied and content just to be here with nothing but the sound and the smell of his baby.

"Purr? There's no cat," a sudden voice protests.

Dean nearly drives off the road. "Dammit, Cas!" Dumb literal angel. He pauses for a moment, recent history catching up to his alarm and annoyance. "Wait. This isn't—"

Cas nods. "Yes, Dean. This is not real. You're dreaming again."

"Fuck…" Dean takes a moment to process, staring blankly at the empty road in front of him. The _empty road_ – how stupid is he? It's a goddamn Friday – he should have known the road was too silent to be real. Even in a rural area, there should at least be a _few_ cars.

The only sign of a living thing he's seen all afternoon was the Five Guys he'd driven past, too distracted to stop in for a bite. Somehow, he swears he can still smell the burgers.

He glances over at Cas again. "You're dead. You died. This your farewell or something?"

Cas actually smiles. "I'm fine, Dean, but thanks for your concern."

Dean keeps checking the road, but it doesn't seem to matter, does it, if this is a dream? "No. No, I woke up—and Sam was there—and you were…"

"I'm all right," Cas almost looks amused at Dean's confusion.

" _No._ " Dean screeches to a halt, checking the dead road in his rearview mirror automatically. He shuts the engine off in the middle of the lane and turns to face his friend directly. "I saw you. I _saw_ you," he protests, feeling his nostrils flare as he speaks. "You had no pulse. You weren't breathing. We called every angel we could think of and took you to the hospital. Nobody answered us, and we got you there too late—Cas—we were _too late_ , you _died!_ "

Cas watches him without saying anything. Then, "I can prove it," in a maddeningly even voice. Dean glares. "When you get home, or when you wake up—either way—look in your night stand drawer. I left a card for you before we went on that last hunt."

Dean shakes his head. "I can't listen to this." He turns away, resting his head on the steering wheel.

A door opens; the leather squeaks slightly as Cas gets out. Door slams. "Dean, please come out here," he hears.

Dean sighs and turns his head. Because he's had his eyes closed for a while, he has no problem adjusting to the dark. Cas is resting his hands against the bottom edge of the window frame, leaning in to peer inside. "No," he mumbles, sullen, not wanting to get out of the car.

"Get _up_ , Dean. Please—get out here."

"Screw off," Dean says as he obliges and pushes the door open. He's halfway around the Impala to Cas's side before it clicks and he takes in the environment around him. "Wait. When did it get to be night?" He stares. "And when did you get one of those burgers?"

"It's a dream, Dean," Cas shrugs, taking a bite. He leans against the car, and Dean follows suit, arms crossed. "Earth logic doesn't apply." After a moment, he holds out the burger. "Want some?"

Dean accepts it and takes a bite, frowning as he chews. "Tastes like… Weird. Like a fake burger or something." He sighs and hands it back. "Better not be tofu. Okay, what'd you want?"

Cas folds the wrapper over the sandwich and sets it on top of the car, then shifts a little closer to him. "Look," he says simply, and lifts his eyes heavenward.

The stars are brilliant. Even taking into account the cloudless sky, the fact that this is a dream, and the fact that they're in the middle of nowhere, Dean is still stunned, taken aback. He remembers going to a planetarium on a field trip with one of his many schools, and it's like it's been replicated above him – but he can tell how vibrant and alive the points of light are here. Nothing like the plastic-looking beads on the ceiling he'd stared at in fascination then. Not to mention – there are honestly _more_ stars here than the planetarium had. And those places are supposed to be accurate.

He can also see a wash, a glow, stretching across a good part of the sky, and he laughs involuntarily, completely amazed. "I see why they call it the Milky Way."

"My gift to you," Cas murmurs, and Dean can tell that he's shifted position, turning his whole body and staring at Dean more than the sky.

"Thanks." Dean's way too caught up in the stars, but eventually he glances back to meet Cas's gaze. "Really. That's awesome."

Cas smiles again. "Are you ready to wake up now?"

Dammit. "I wish this was real," Dean tells him, turning to the sky above again. "Fuck…"

"Don't forget about that card," Cas adds as the world seeps away.

He holds off reality and waking up as long as he possibly can, but all too soon, he's blinking his eyes open in bed, looking up at a painfully bare ceiling with memories so strong, he can practically see the stars superimposed over the paint.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean can't tell if he's beginning to lose it or not, to be honest. On the one hand, he _knows_ Cas is dead. For fuck's sake, he stayed at the hospital for hours until he was literally pulled away, _and_ he watched Cas's body burn. These are facts.

But on the other hand… He's had Cas show up in his dreams before. While an angel, but hell. Things feel different when Cas is dreamwalking, as opposed to when Dean is simply dreaming about him. This had felt like the former.

"—I said, do you want some more coffee while I'm up?"

Dean jerks his head up and looks at Sam for a second without really registering what he's saying. Then it kicks in and Dean nods, holding out his cup. "Sure. Yeah, sure, thanks."

It's not _completely_ impossible for Cas to still be alive somehow, is it? Knowing their lives… Knowing how insane things can be…

Sam returns and sets the cup down in front of Dean, sipping his own as he takes a seat across from his brother. "Sleep okay?"

"Okay enough," Dean mumbles, staring down into the black liquid. "Did—uh, did Charlie ever call back?" He curls his hands around the cup, absorbing the warmth and inhaling the familiar scent.

There's a long pause. When Dean finally looks up, Sam is watching him worriedly. "Dean—Charlie's—you know she's—"

"She's fine, Sam," Dean states firmly. "Remember, we saw her at the hospital? She said she'd be over this week and I was just wonder—"

Sam crosses his arms and leans forward. "She's gone, too, Dean. You know this. Are you all right?"

There's no way. This can't be. This _can't_ be real. Dean shakes his head. "I'm _fine_ , whatever, who cares. Where's Charlie?"

"She's…" Sam pauses. His gaze traces a pattern over the wood of the table, his empty plate with tiny pieces of scrambled egg, down at the floor for a moment. He glances back at Dean. "She's—busy. She can't make it this week after all."

Dean nods. See, he knows what he's talking about.

Several more minutes pass in silence. Halfway through his second cup of coffee, Dean says, "So—I dreamed about Cas last night. He said he left me a card or something."

"Oh. Good dream, then?" Sam asks, his tone lighter now.

Dean slides a thumb along the blue and brown patterned stripes of the coffee mug, fixated by how the blue one is thicker, and how random that seems. "Yeah. But I'm wondering if it was a dream or—" Sam doesn't say anything, eyes trained evenly on him. "…or really him."

"Dean."

He shakes his head. "No. Don't look at me like that. I was only wondering if there was any way, now he's gone, if he was able to… You know?"

Sam swallows nervously. "Dean, you know, you never let the doctors check on you. And _you_ hit your head pretty damn hard too, you know."

Screw this. Fuck everything about that tone of voice Sam has right now. Dean threads his fingers through the handle of the cup, drinking the rest of his coffee and thumping the cup back down. He makes sure his movements are slow and deliberate, maybe overly so, as he slides his chair back and stands. "I'm not crazy, Sam, I'm not." Every syllable clear and calm.

"I'm not saying you are, I just think—Some tests wouldn't be a bad idea," Sam insists, trotting behind him as Dean takes the cup to the sink and flips on the water. "I'm not _mocking_ you or anythin—"

"Okay, shut the hell up for a second, okay?" Dean's finished with the stupid mug and is about to put it in the drainer when he sees a line stained near the top, so dammit, of course he has to wash it again now. And then, washing it two times feels somehow less complete than one, so he washes it again just to make it an even three. Sam falls silent while he works.

Finally, he's done with the damn thing and sets it upside down into the drainer. "Okay. I'm gonna go get the card."

"Dean—"

Dean holds up a palm and cuts him off. "Nope. Be right back."

xxxxx

For once, his optimism isn't misplaced. There _is_ a card, _Dean_ written too carefully and neatly across a pale green envelope. Dean's breath catches, and he sinks down on the bed as he slips a fingertip into the flap and slots it open.

It's a blank-inside card with a little watercolor bird on the front. Inside, Cas left a simple, short message.

 _Dean, thank you for everything. I'm glad we're friends. Castiel._ And because Cas hadn't been enough of a dork, he actually put a small smiley face, complete with circle around it.

He brandishes it proudly in the kitchen. "See? _See?!_ Look, Sam. Look at this."

Sam examines it. "That was nice of him," he says diplomatically. He waits a beat or two, and then because he's Sam, _has_ to rain on Dean's parade. "Are… are you sure you didn't see it before, and you forgo—"

"Fuck it, Sam, forget the whole thing." Dean storms off.


	4. Chapter 4

THIS IS THE REAL CHAPTER FOUR. I am so sorry for the screwup. Teach me to multi task. -_-

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Someone's talking. "…even if you can't hear a _thing_ I'm telling you right now… —ou're stubborn and infuriating and that is one of my fa—"

Too. Much. Talking.

Dean drifts off again as the voice blah-blah-blahs on and on.

Sometime later – no idea when – he slowly becomes more and more alert. Voice is gone. He's too tired to wonder. But… his skin is practically crawling, as if…

Dean opens his eyes.

And his arms jerk out in shock. "Jeez! Cas!" he mutters in annoyance, yanked all the way to consciousness. "Don't _do_ that." Cas is standing over him, just _watching_ Dean nap. In his fucking room. Creep.

"Sorry," Cas says, his voice muffled by the rather large mouthful of food he's chewing. "Get up. Scoot over." Oh, the smell… He's holding a plate of…

"Bacon?" Dean says with interest, his eyes locking onto the plate as he scoots over on his bed to make room. He grabs the wireless mouse and glancing up at the TV episode still playing on the laptop. "Hell you doing in here, anyway," he half-asks as he checks his watch and clicks to go back a few episodes.

Cas sets the plate on the dresser next to the laptop and pulls his trenchcoat off, throwing it across the foot of the bed. "Got bored. I figured I'd come watch with you." He grabs the plate again and takes a seat next to Dean, staring at the computer. "What're we watching?" Grabs another strip of bacon.

"Um, Sense8." Dean reaches for a piece and groans when Cas pulls it away. "Oh, come _on_ , you have like a whole _pound_ there!"

"Fine." Cas sighs wearily, holding it closer again. "I do _not_ have a whole pound, though."

"Close enough," Dean says, already stuffing a whole strip into his mouth.

It's embarrassing how late the realization is, but when it hits, it slams into Dean as hard as the cold porcelain had that night. He almost chokes on the bacon. "I'm dreaming again, aren't I?" Cas nods. "And you're—you died."

Cas sifts through the strips on the plate, looking for a certain type, apparently. "No, Dean. I keep telling you that."

"I _saw_ —"

"You saw what you saw," Cas interrupts. He shuts up and chews, and then goes on. "You didn't see what happened to me."

Dean sputters. "Yeah—because—yeah—I was two floors up when it happened!"

Cas nods. "Exactly, Dean."

 _Screw it. This is a dream. Nothing's gonna make sense anyway._ Dean decides to let it go.

They fall into a comfortable silence. Cas frowns at the screen at one point, and Dean is about to ask if he's lost when Cas speaks up first. "So what episodes have you seen?" he asks, nibbling on a slightly burned piece.

Dean blinks. "Wha—Why? Have you watched it already or something?"

Cas nods, eyes on the screen. "Mm-hmm. Last week, or was it the week before? When Sam was on that hunt in Oklahoma City. I borrowed his computer."

"What, uh—" Dean can't speak. He's too focused on the crow's lines by Cas's left eye, the muscles in his jaw flexing minutely as he smiles slightly, the way his hair curls behind his ear. _Oh, keep it together, Winchester. Don't get all girly._ "What episodes have _you_ seen?"

"All of them." Cas turns his head, amused. "You should see the one wher—" And he pauses. "Dean?"

Dean knows he should probably be embarrassed here, but it's late, he's in a great content mood with Cas here with bacon, and he can't bring himself to care. He reaches over, avoiding the plate of bacon between them. Cas looks down, and thankfully seems to be on the same page. He takes Dean's offered hand, intertwining their fingers.

A very loaded moment passes. Cas meets Dean's gaze. "Dean—"

Loud footsteps echo down the hall, the noise floating through the open door. Cas looks away, and Dean shuts his eyes, almost reflexively pulling his hand back from Cas's loosened grip. By the time he realizes how that probably appears to Cas, Sam's walking in.

"Got a case in Tacoma," Sam announces, innocent to what he almost walked in on. He's scrolling down his phone, head inclined and the hair swinging forward over the left side of his face. "Sounds like a shifter."

"Get up, Dean," Cas says, picking the plate back up and standing. "Break time's over, huh?"

Dean swings his legs over the other side of the bed, running a hand over the back of his neck before he gets to his feet. "Okay," he says, clicking out of the movie player and walking around to shut the laptop. "What's going on?"

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psa: The food thing is a theme. Please don't read this thing while hungry. :P

Also, I intended to write "something's off with the food", I guess? Hence the burger taste thing in ch2. But I apparently forgot about that in subsequent parts. Please forgive this minor plot hole. *lowers head and shuffles off in shame* *hurries back and grabs one of the bacon strips and runs off again*


	5. Chapter 5

AUUUGH so embarrassed. Obviously the previous chapter was (temporarily) wrong. It's fixed now!

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"…so I'll go take care of it cause I need to stay busy right now, an—" Dean pauses and glances around. "Weren't we j—" He stops talking entirely.

"What?" Sam frowns, looking up from his computer.

This can't be happening. He cannot be losing his mind. Dean takes a deep breath. "I was just in my room," he insists. "Literally, not two seconds ago."

Sam seems slightly annoyed. "Yeah, we were," he says slowly, deliberately, as if Dean is four. It's his teasing voice. "And then you came out here, and now we're both out here."

"No, I swear, I don't remember coming out here. Like, you were talking about a case, and then I wa—"

"Hey, Sam," a familiar voice rings out. Muffled. Talking with a full mouth. "Hope nobody wanted hot dogs. I made the last two."

Dean stares unabashedly as Kevin ( _Kevin!_ ) walks into the library, holding a half-eaten chili dog. The smell wafts over. "Y—"

Kevin swallows and narrows his eyes. "What's his problem?" he asks Sam.

"Uhhh… Not sure," Sam murmurs, glancing over. "And it's fine, whatever, I was gonna pick some up tomorrow anyway."

Dean holds up a hand. "Wait. Wait a fucking second. How is Kevin alive? You—Gadreel—I mean—"

Kevin's brow furrows, and he darts another glance at Sam. "He having another episode?"

"I think so," Sam says quietly. He stands up and walks around the table. All trace of teasing is gone. "Dean, okay, look. This happens sometimes. The night Cas—That night—You hit your head pretty hard. I mean, you really got dinged. And ever since then, sometimes you have these times where you're confused and mix stuff up. I didn't know you were having another one – I should've taken that seriously. I'm sorry."

Dean can't stop blinking, looking at Kevin, at Sam, at everything and nothing in the Bunker at the same time. He _saw_ Kevin die. He _saw_ Kevin's body burn. There's no way he could make that up.

 _But how does a crazy person_ know _he's crazy? Would you know? Wouldn't it feel just as real as anything else?_

"Sometimes you swear Charlie died, too," Kevin adds, and this makes Dean's head spin even more.

"Bobby?" he asks absently, bracing his weight on the table and trying to catch his breath.

Sam pauses. "No, I'm sorry, Bobby really did die," he tells Dean gently. "Three years ago. Lev—"

"Leviathan, I know," Dean cuts him off. "Dick Roman. I remember. I was there." He stands up straight and stares at Kevin. "You—You don't remember anything about me asking you to make a spell to eject an angel? Or—or Sam—uhh… Or any angel in the Bunker—besides Cas?"

Kevin shakes his head.

"Dean, you sure you don't wanna lie down or something?" Sam cuts in.

Dean ignores him, still focused on Kevin. "You ain't a trick, are you?" Dean demands.

"Nope," Kevin smirks, but there's a twinge of regret in his expression – pity for Dean – after Cas's name was brought up. Dean pushes away the painful reminder and steps forward to wrap his arms around the kid so tightly that he lifts him straight off the ground. "Whoa—! Okay," Kevin laughs awkwardly. "You're fine, Dean, everything's fine—" A shadow crosses his face as Dean releases him, all of Kevin's weight on the ground again. "Well… um, not _everything_ , but… Anyway."

Right. Cas.

Dean feels incredibly weird. He has a feeling he has been for a while. His dreams have been so vivid, so reassuring, so _clear-cut_ as they twist his brain into knots… "No," Dean mumbles, shutting his eyes tightly. "No, this can't be—I'm not crazy—something's wrong here."

 _Cas is alive._

The thought leaps into his mind and he spits it out seconds before registering the words. "Cas is alive. Cas is still alive?"

Dead silence. Dean opens his eyes again.

Sam speaks warily. "He's gone, Dean, you know that. We—we tried. We called every angel we could think of. Got him to the hospital too late…"

Dean has no idea where the thought came from, or why it occurred to him in the first place, but he locks onto it like a man in a desert finding a forgotten canteen full of water. "No," he says desperately, urgently, a memory coming back to him. Cas watching TV with him, leaving the trenchcoat in his room. "No. His coat—he left it in my room—I thought it was a dream, but it was on the end of my bed when I woke up, it was there, I swear—" It _wasn't_ a dream, was it? A dream after the dream? He looks back and forth with wild eyes to both Sam and Kevin. "Please, you have to beli—I'm _not_ crazy, I'm _not._ "

"We know you're not," Sam murmurs, and for a second Dean would have sworn on Baby that Sam was speaking with Bobby's voice. He shakes his head as Sam goes on, chalking it up to fatigue. "We're just worried, is all." His voice is back to normal, but it's in a in a cautious tone that all but stands next to him with a sign reading LIAR, HE THINKS YOU'RE INSANE.

"Dean, you need to go lie down," Kevin concurs, shifting his weight. "Believe me, don't push yourself. I made—" and _Ash_ 's voice here, what the _fuck_ — "that mistake last year."

Dean stumbles back. "I'll—I swear. It was there. I'll go get it," he insists, high on the idea with the pitch of his speech rising and his words bleeding together.

They're wrong. It's wrong. _He's_ wrong. The only thing on the foot of his bed is his old leather jacket, forgotten for a few years. He doesn't remember why he got it out. He doesn't remember digging it out in the first place. He doesn't even remember where it had gone for a while, and when he'd gotten it back.

Maybe—maybe there _is_ something wrong with him. Maybe losing Castiel again finally broke him.

Dean groans and sits on the edge of his bed, covering his face with both hands.


	6. Chapter 6

"Get up, Dean. Dean! Get the hell up!"

He'd been right on the edge of sleep, about to completely fall into slumber and now here comes Sam, all excited about something. Probably found a new hairstyle online he wants Dean to help him with. Maybe braids on both sides or something.

The thought makes him scoff out a loud enough laugh that Dean knows there's no going to sleep now.

He drags himself into a sitting position, blinking sleep away and rubbing his face. "Ugh. Okay. What's up?"

Sam's face is lit up. "Cas is back." He grins. "Close your mouth and get out here."

He's right. Dean finds Cas, alive ( _why?_ ) and well ( _how?_ ) in the library, trenchcoat and tie and all. He looks as confused about his reappearance as they are. "Cas," Dean breathes in shock, striding forward.

Cas meets him halfway, and Dean locks his arms around Cas's miraculously healthy, solid frame. He squeezes him just this side of too tightly, gripping handfuls of the light brown fabric of the coat beneath his fingers. Distantly he realizes he's shaking uncontrollably.

Sam chuckles from somewhere behind him, an exhalation of giddy relief as well as amusement. "Comin' up for air anytime soon?"

"Shut up, Sammy," Dean answers without letting go.

Finally, he and Cas separate, Cas holding onto Dean's elbow and looking at him in concern. "It's okay," he says quietly. "I'm okay."

Sam steps in and hugs Cas as well, and then they're just standing there, with a (former?) angel once again alive and with none of them having a single clue why.

Dean knows his face is flushed to hell with emotion, but he doesn't care. "Cas, what—uh, what happened?"

Cas shakes his head. "I have no idea why, but… I was in the—the house's basement one second, and then I… I was here. Outside. I don't know what happened myself." He eyes the plate of French fries left on the table, which Dean had left half-eaten after realizing he was too tired to bother. "May I?"

"Sure, go ahead," Dean shrugs, and Cas starts in on them.

"So… what are you, human? Angel again?" Dean shifts his weight from one foot to the next nervously, unsure. Cas's resurrections usually come with complications, after all…

"I seem to be human," Cas says uncertainly, swallowing and examining his salt-dusted hands.

"You are," an unfamiliar voice rings out from behind Sam and Dean.

Dean pivots to see. Some guy is there, smiling, dark-haired and a bit shorter than Cas. "Who are y—"

"Hannah," Sam says. "Right?"

The angel nods. "Yes."

"Why am I back? Again?" Cas frowns slightly. He's appears almost offended. "What are the strings attached to?"

Hannah steps a bit closer. "You deserved another chance," she (he?) (does it matter?) states simply. "You have helped save the world multiple times, and we… We felt it wasn't fair that your life ended right as it began."

Dean scoffs. "So, what, is this you guys' apology for not believing him? Twice?" Cas looks on suspiciously, eyes narrowed and a fry halfway to his mouth.

"Sometimes good things happen." Hannah watches them process. "And we believe he will still do good things."

Cas exhales.

Hannah shakes his head fondly, exasperated but with affection. "I can't stay, Castiel. Good luck to all." His gaze flickers over all three, and then doubles back to between Cas and Dean. A moment later, he's gone.

Dean sinks down into a chair, blown away. "Man, am I getting déjà vu," he mutters.

"Yeah, me too." Sam picks up his own empty plate from lunch. "I'm glad, though, Cas." He pats Cas's shoulder on his way out of the library, grinning. "Happy you're back."

"Me too," Cas murmurs in amazement, scrutinizing his arms and hands again. Experimentally, he pinches the skin on the back of his hand.

Dean doesn't know what to say first. Finally, it just starts spilling out. "God, it's good to see you, man. I'm so—It's—I feel like things are _normal_ again. I was starting to think I was craz—" Cas looks at him, a patient expression on his face. "Everything's—yeah. Everything's back to normal again."

Cas bites the corner of his lip, the skin puckering on the side of his mouth. "Not exactly, Dean."

"What do you mean?" Dean frowns. All the lightness in his body has solidified, becoming heavier, and it's this more than Cas's words that alert him to the fact that _bad things are coming, you should've known, Dean, you stupid motherfucker._

"Get up. Get out of bed."

Dean groans. "No. No, please, this can't be a fucki—"

xxx

His eyelids pop open, and sure enough he's staring at the ceiling of his bedroom, sprawled across his bed.

"God _damn_ it."


	7. Chapter 7

"I don't know what's going on," Dean admits sometime later in the war room, resting his forehead in his hand. "I'm awake, I'm losing it. I'm dreaming, everything's fine. It's—it's like dreaming and being awake have flipped, like my mind is all…" He groans in frustration.

"You're still recovering," says Sam. Charlie nods in concerned agreement, leaning crossed arms on the table.

Dean shakes his head. "No. I mean, I know something's wrong with me, but this… It's…" A thought occurs to him and he glances around the Bunker. "I'm not in a djinn dream, am I? How do I know this is real?" He pinches the thinner skin of his wrist, and it hurts – but does that mean anything? Does pain still work the same way in djinn-induced dreams?

Charlie and Sam dart a look at each other. "Well, wouldn't we be both dead too?" Sam suggests. "If this was one of the bad types of djinn worlds?"

"You never thought you were in a dream when—after the Cas-God thing," Charlie says gently, watching Dean for signs of panic or something at the reminder. "Or after Purgatory."

Dean wonders how she knows to that degree. Pretty sure she wasn't there. He used to be able to keep things and timelines straight in his head. But who knows anymore at this point. Anyway, she and Sam probably talked about it when he wasn't around or something. He listens to the sound of his breathing, trying to focus. "I'm not… I'm not losing my mind here," he insists, trying to convince himself as much as them. "I'm not."

Sam clears his throat. "No, but you're also under a lot of stress. It's understandable."

"Things'll get better," Charlie cuts in. " _You'll_ get better. It's always darkest before the dawn, right?"

That's about the weirdest thing he's ever heard Charlie say. Overused words and not a geek reference or gaming metaphor?

Dean shoves back from the table and goes to grab another beer. When he returns, Charlie and Sam break off their conversation. He's pretty sure he heard something about "medication" and sighs in annoyance. "I'm not going to any damn shrink," he scoffs.

"It could help you, Dean," Sam pleads. "If you give it a chance. Charlie was saying she wished she'd gone to see someone after her parents' accident."

Charlie nods. "Honestly? I didn't really want to. But I was wrong. It could have helped."

Dean rolls his eyes.

"It could… Just try it, Dean," Sam urges. "Could be your light at the end of the tunnel here. Help you stop feeling like things are backwards."

"The hell's with the cliches?" Dean frowns, looking at them like _they're_ the crazy ones.

Charlie stands up and walks over to him. "Please, let us help you," she says, and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Two heads—three, in this case—are better than one, right?" She doesn't explain the cliches.

Dean _absolutely_ can't believe they're fucking serious about that. Hell, he's wondering if he's even hearing right at this point.

Maybe…

Slowly, he lowers his head in a reluctant half-nod. "Fine."

"All right. Silver lining," Sam blurts out. "Maybe I'll talk to someone too. I mean… Our lives… Wouldn't be a bad idea. Wouldn't have to tell them _everything_ , just that we lost a friend, you know?"

"Do I still have to go get tested for brain damage?" Dean mutters, asking the floor more than his family.

A pause.

Oh, _fuck_. Another "episode," apparently. Dean glances back up and hates the Worried About Dean looks Sam and Charlie are trading. "Nevermind," he quickly amends.

"We… never talked about that," Charlie says softly. "But you know what? You _did_ hit your head really hard, Sam said. You might've done something to it – maybe that's why things are a little…" She waves her hands in a vaguely sphere shape. "—for you right now. It's a good idea."

"Sure, what the fuck ever," Dean mumbles, eyes on the floor again. He's not looking forward to any of it.

And it's not that he's reluctant to get brain-scanned or go to therapy merely to be a stubborn little prick. He's got a feeling that with how insane things are right now, they simply won't _find_ anything. If something's wrong with this world, something will be wrong with the testing.

Simple as that.


	8. Chapter 8

The brothers walk through the darkness, the only sound around them crickets chirping.

Sam is the one to break the silence. "Cannot believe I let you talk me into this," he grouses, carrying the flashlight as well as his own shovel. The beam of light sweeps back and forth as he swings it aimlessly before them, restless.

"Shut up, Sammy, it's _gonna_ work." Dean says this through gritted teeth.

"If you say so."

They trudge on.

A few seconds later, Sam speaks up again. "Are you completely sure about this, though? I mean, maybe you were right earlier—you _could_ try going to a doctor." Dean had accidentally let it slip about discussing therapy, medication, and CT scans with the fake versions of Sam and Charlie.

"If this doesn't work, we'll try that." Dean doesn't mention his still-present fears over the tests, treatment, cure, whatever, being as trivial and futile as this so-called waking world might be.

Sam nods decisively, satisfied somewhat. "Good."

Cas's grave really isn't that far out. It probably just seems like it's taking a long time to walk there. _Although_ , Dean thinks, _if I am losing my mind, who's to say my sense of time ain't fucked up too?_

"He's—I don't think it's a regular haunting," Dean had claimed over a very late brinner, cutting his pancakes into smaller and smaller pieces out of nerves. "I don't know how, but part of him is like, stuck here, and he j—… He won't let me go. He's in my dreams, in my head, and I can't—"

Sam had given him that _stupid_ fucking concerned look.

"I'm _not_ crazy, I'm _not_ , Sam," Dean had insisted. "Please, let's try re-salting and burning. Just in case it didn't take." Whatever happens, this will give them results: either Cas is hanging around and _is_ haunting Dean, or he's not and Dean is really—

He doesn't want to finish that thought. He's not insane, he's not. This will prove it and Sam can stop giving him those looks.

They're walking along in the dark, doing it tonight because it had bothered Dean so badly that he couldn't wait one single night to make sure.

He shifts his shovel's position, swinging it up against his shoulder. The container of salt in his pocket presses annoyingly against his thigh.

They'd buried Cas's remains at the base of a low hill. Dean immediately plunges the shovel into the ground and gets to work. Sam sighs, probably shaking his head. He drops the flashlight and follows suit.

After a while of digging, the sheet they'd wrapped Cas in is completely revealed, stained a permanent dingy gray from all the dirt pressing down on it but still pale enough to reflect the feeble moonlight shining down.

Dean lowers himself into the hole and starts to peel the sheet back, salt ready in his other hand. "All right, Sam, I—" He stops entirely.

Cas's body is gone.

 _No._

Dean clenches his eyes shut in frustration.


	9. Chapter 9

This is your last chance to figure out the inspiration, if you haven't already ;)

Xxxxxxx

Dean's eyes fly open, and he sits up in bed. Immediately, he jolts back in shock.

There are _multiple_ Castiels here. His jaw drops as he takes them all in: over there, Godstiel, standing regally and with a judgmental brow cocked. The Misha guy from that alternate universe, frantically typing something on his phone and grinning. Crazy Cas from the asylum, eyes wide and delighted as he examines a monarch butterfly opening and closing its wings on the back of his hand. Leviathan-Cas, bleeding black and darting a glare at Crazy Cas before pinching one of the butterfly's wings between his fingers and flipping it across the room. Cas as Steve, blue vest and jeans and all, slushy mix all over his knees and lower legs. And Angel Cas standing apart from all of them by the door, his wings just flaring back out of visible sight.

"What the _fuck_." Dean stares, open-mouthed. How did he get here—when—he and Sam were jus—And _Castiels_ , plural—

Crazy Cas is distracted, turned away, searching for where the butterfly landed.

"Dean doesn't… quite… realize we're here… to… remind him… of Cas," Misha dictates as he types. "Hashtag guilty conscience."

His heart slams into his ribs. "This is a dream. Again." He clambers off the bed and reaches for the closest shotgun, anything, whatever will wake him up. Without looking, his hand closes on his .45, and he pulls it close to his body, wanting to hide it behind his leg but knowing they've seen it anyway.

Cas-Steve nods. "It happens, Dean."

"Not that you don't deserve a nightmare or two," Leviathan-Cas growls. If that version of Cas _could_ look happy, Dean's pretty sure it would, at his own misery. It attempts a smile but the way it reveals its teeth only resemble a predator locking onto its prey.

Crazy Cas apparently spots the butterfly, mutely stepping across the room behind everyone and getting onto his knees. He holds his hand out, waiting.

"Wake up," Dean hisses to himself, digging his fingernails into the skin on the back of his arm. "Wake up, wake up."

Godstiel shakes his head slowly. "No. Not yet. You're to be punished first," he says.

"You deserve this," Angel Cas agrees emotionlessly. Dean's mouth goes dry. _You don't think you deserve to be saved. …You deserve this._

"No, please, no," Dean begs his subconscious, stepping away until his back hits the wall. Insanely, _stupidly_ , he realizes he's sliding down to the ground, worst defensive position _ever_. Idiot.

Crazy Cas stops watching the butterfly – somehow on his hand again – and faces him. "Get up, Dean," he orders quietly, the hippie-ness fading from his gaze and lucidity slowly appearing. He waves his hand lightly as he stands, and the butterfly flutters away.

Dean looks at him, and at the rest of the Cas…es. Stunned, he watches as every other version fades from view, all of them glaring. Even Cas-Steve. Even Misha, with more of a "you're kidding, right?" expression than a full hateful glower.

He gets to his feet and sits on the edge of the bed. The trenchcoat is back, lying exactly where Cas had thrown it that time he'd watched TV with Dean, and he sets the gun down to gather it into a clump on his lap.

When he looks up again, Crazy—Not So Crazy?—Cas is gone.

For some weird reason, now there's a thick slice of pie on his dresser, next to his closed laptop. It smells like cherry, but for once Dean doesn't care. He's too confused to be hungry.

He lies back on the bed, toying with the material of the trenchcoat. He doesn't know what to do, doesn't know whether the increased hallucinations means he's falling farther into madness. Or if it means there's a small part of his mind that stupidly wants to live, trying desperately to protect itself by insisting he recover from this—whatever _this_ is.

"Don't go back to sleep," Cas's voice rings out. "Get up." Dean jerks his head up, searching, but nobody is there. He's back to having auditory hallucinations.

He sighs roughly and turns onto his side, picking up the gun again idly before resting it on the pillow next to him.

"Dean, please get up, please," the Cas-voice insists. Angry, but trying to tamp it down.

He grips the trenchcoat tigher, balling it up. Curls his legs up toward his stomach like a fucking little kid. Brings the coat up to breathe in the scent still there.

"Get _up_ , Dean, dammit!" he hears in the back of his mind. "Get the _fuck_ up!"

Whoa. He doesn't remember _ever_ hearing Cas swear like that. "I can't," he realizes he's saying out loud, and is talking to a voice that's not there, but knowing it's not real, insane? Or therapeutic? Whatever. "I can't, sorry," he gasps again, and presses the coat to his face to stop additional words from coming out. Inhales.

The coat smells so much like his Cas that it's a wonder he's not having _visual_ hallucinations all over again. Nothing's real, and everything is real, and what does any of it matter anymore?

"Don't _fucking_ do this, get up!" Angry, again, the ire riding a wave of barely suppressed devastation. "Since when does Dean Winchester just pack it in?"

Dean's hand crawls along the bedspread next to him. Searching.

" _Dean!_ "

Oh, right. Pillow. He pulls the trenchcoat away from his nose and mouth long enough to exhale a chestful of stale air and dart a glance at where the gun is. Yep. Pillow it is. He grabs it and holds the coat to his face again, breathing in desperately, almost whimpering with how hard he's inhaling.

" _Please…_ Please get up, I'll do anything, Dean, please."

Dean pulls the coat away one more time. "I don't know what the fuck you're saying!" Dean yells out hysterically. "You keep telling me that!"

He doesn't see Cas, so this isn't a hallucination. But in his mind's eye, suddenly Cas appears. His imagination. Cas is full of sorrow and sadness as he speaks, and that stupid children's poem comes to mind – _Wednesday's Child is full of woe_ , except it's wrong, Castiel is the angel of Thursday, only Dean can't remember what the fuck Thursday was supposed to be, and wait, what did Cas just say? Did he hear him say something about lov— "What did you say?" Dean demands.

Cas's voice echoes through his head. "Get up. Wake up. Please, Dean."

Dean's hand locks around the handle of the gun so tightly the bones on the back of his hand hurt.


	10. Chapter 10

The author's note below is longer than this last chapter. :/

xxxxx

He won't remember an even line dividing things afterward. Won't be able to point to a single frame of time and indicate "that was then, that was waking up." Everything blurs and bleeds and seeps together.

All the same, he's still in a bed, still listening to a raspy voice pleading – only, no, it's different. His head is a universe of agony, and there are streaks of pain rampaging through his body – feels like broken ribs here, sprained ankle, busted shoulder, a dull ache in his thigh like something went through it.

He also feels a hand clenched around his, and this makes him open his eyes.

"Please, Dean. Wake up. Get up."

Cas.

 _Cas._

 _Cas!_

Dean squeezes the hand as hard as he can, and Cas lifts his head in shock, tears slowly trickling down into the impressive growth of facial hair he's managed to collect. It reminds Dean of Purgatory. "Cas—you're alive?" he asks.

"You're _awake_ , Dean!" Cas cries out, eyes wide. A fresh round of tears spill down too-pale cheeks. He yanks his hand free and dials a cell phone quickly. "S-Sam," he says breathlessly, while Dean looks around the room. A plate of pancakes sits on the otherwise unused breakfast table, next to a small uneaten half-pie in a grocery store's hard shell packaging. Cherry, from the look of it. Butter and syrup are on the pancakes, although it's all been there a while, judging from the texture of the syrup.

"Yeah. He's awake. Get up here _now._ " Cas tosses the phone onto the table and resumes his staring.

"What? I got a booger?" Dean quips, his voice rough from lack of use, trying to ignore how his heart is hammering triple time at the fact that _Cas is alive, Cas is alive, Cas is alive_.

Cas's breathing is uneven, the man obviously finding it impossible to believe that Dean's both alert and talking to him. "You're awake," he says again.

"Well, yeah," Dean smirks. "You wouldn't let me sleep." He swallows and continues. "Wanna tell me how you're alive? That second ghost got you in the basement… Someone bring you back?"

Cas shakes his head. "No. You got knocked into the wall in the bathroom and we were almost too late to get you here," he whispers, glassy-eyed. "I hurled a piece of pipe into the ghost so hard, it went into a wall. And then I went up… I found you…" He breaks off, looking devastated.

Sam bursts into the room. "He's really awake!" he exclaims. "Jeez, Dean. You had us scared to death and back. You were in that coma _forever_."

"How—" Goddamn, Dean is starving. He stares at the pancakes and the pie hungrily. "How long?"

Sam leans in to hug his brother tightly. Dean can feel his shoulders shaking before Sam pulls away to take a seat next to Cas. "Sixteen days," Sam tells him, watching with amused relief as Dean reaches for the pie. "Cas wouldn't shut the hell up the whole time we were here." Dean picks up the container and is about to open it when Sam snags it out of his hands. "Whoa, maybe take it easy? Talk to a doctor or something first? You've been on IV nutrition for two weeks, calm down." He hits the Call Nurse button.

"Fine," Dean mutters as Sam sets the pie down and grabs the alert remote. He speaks into the receiver to a nurse, who says she'll send in Dr. Culp immediately.

Dean shakes his head in wonder, turning to Cas. "So… yeah. You were like, Alarm Clock of the Lord or something in there."

"You mean _Chatterbox_ of the Lord," Sam says, still apparently shocked and hysterical as he lets the remote drop.

Cas smiles, brushing the back of his hand over the tear tracks. "I have heard about talking to coma patients, giving them a sort of anchor, so to speak."

"And the food," Sam cuts in, nodding his head to the pancakes. "He kept bringing your favorites, hoping the smell somehow got to you."

The burgers, the bacon, the pancakes, the fries, the pie. Unbelievable.

"Yes, the food and the talking both…" Cas mumbles, toying with an edge of the sheet hanging over the bed. He sighs. "I'm not sure if it worked, though."

Dean finds the button to push the upper part of his bed higher. He waits until he's in a sitting position, then leans forward, looking at Cas. "Come here a sec," he says. Cas pulls his chair closer. "It worked, Cas." He reaches out and pulls Cas into a hug, shuddering with relief that the dreams—nightmares—weren't reality. "It worked." He sniffs, and can't help the grin that crawls across his face. "But dude. You stink."

"You're one to talk," Cas scoffs.

Sam just laughs.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

OKAY! So I am sure it's obvious, but the inspiration for this was Futurama's "The Sting." I tried really hard to pay tribute to certain scenes without using exact wording, but I am an Aspiegirl and therefore not super super good at subtlety (reading or expressing) so I'm sure everyone figured it out anyway! :P *gives self a little mocking You Tried star* (And yes, that _is_ the episode the one review said this story reminded them of!)

Thank you for reading! And if you have not watched Futurama, or that episode, you totally should. It's my favorite show after Supernatural and was a big part of my life for a long time. Goooooo watch!

The parallels I tried to lay in:

 **Dream 1, where Cas shows up with a burger / the stars scene:** the stars are a ref to Fry and Leela in space when he gives her the gift from his locker. ( _Side note: I had the burger taste "strange" because I intended all the food to be not real or something, and then I forgot about that plotline through the rest of the food mentions. Sorry. :/_ ) Also, the envelope was a light green, as was the wrapping paper on Fry's gift to Leela.

 **Dream 2, where Cas and Dean watch TV with bacon:** Only thing here is the handholding. That's about as far into romance territory I was able to take it while still trying to make it feel organic (my shipper side was disappointed, lemme tell you!). Also, Cas takes his trenchcoat off and leaves it behind for after the dream.

 **Post-Dream 2, where Sam and Kevin are worried about Dean's sanity:** He goes to get Cas's trenchcoat and only finds his leather jacket in its place. This is a direct parallel of Leela holding up what she thinks is Fry's red coat and is actually only her green one. Also, Sam temporarily having Bobby's voice and Kevin having Ash's voice for a sec = Amy, Hermes, and Bender all having the wrong voices for a line or two.

 **Dream 3, where Cas is back via Hannah:** Such a flimsy explanation! That's really all I was going for. It was a weak explanation on Futurama (the couch and the royal jelly and Fry's hair/skin/blood on the couch), and it was a weak explanation here.

 **Post-Dream 3, where Charlie and Sam are worried:** I could not and would not do the song thing. It would have been even more of a giveaway, and totally OOC. So I figured cliches would work in their place. As with Futurama ("Were you just singing?" "I'm not allowed to sing. Court order."), they don't acknowledge the cliches when asked.

 **The scene where Sam goes with Dean to dig up Cas's remains and it's not there:** Scene in Futurama where Leela goes to find Fry's coffin and _he's_ not there.

 **Pre-awakening scene with multiple Castiels and also Dean hearing the real Cas's voice:** Leela in her apartment with the rest of the cast blaming her for Fry's death and then seeing the photo of him talking to her. I didn't explicitly say that Cas told Dean he loved him, but he did - it's in the paragraph where Dean's mind is going hyperfast and he mentions the Wednesday's child thing.

 **Misc:** I could not have Cas saying "Wake up" throughout the story, so I changed it to "Get up" here and there, organic to the scene ("Get up [out of the car]," "Get up [so I can sit down too]," etc) wherever possible. I also thought that including food as well as talking to Dean was my own spin on things. I mean, c'mon, it's Dean after all :P I think Sam suggested this one, though, not Cas.

Like I said, I tried to both parallel _and_ be subtle, but argh, it was way harder than I thought!

Thanks again for reading, following, and favorite-ing!


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